'Anything is possible' - Alonso

Fernando Alonso believes "anything is possible" at this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix after finishing third behind the two Mercedes in Friday practice.

Ferrari was working through an extensive run-plan split between its two drivers, but Alonso still managed to be the fastest of three drivers within a second of Lewis Hamilton's pace-setting Mercedes. He said there was still a lot to do, but with the weather changing for the better over the weekend that anything can happen.

"In both sessions, Kimi and I were on different programmes and now we must put all the data together to choose which of the elements we tested have worked best," he said. "It was always cloudy today and there were even a few drops of rain, but the next days are meant to be sunny and so tyre behaviour could change.

"The good forecast means that anything is possible and hopefully that means the chance to put on a good show for the fans who were already here in large numbers today."

Ferrari's director of engineering Pat Fry is expecting the field to be very tightly packed.

"Qualifying will be very close, especially because on such a short track, just a tenth of a second can win or lose you several places on the grid, so we will need to get a clean lap without traffic," he said. "As far as race pace is concerned, behind the Mercedes there's a group of cars all quite close together, doing very similar lap times, so a good grid position would mean not having to chase after the others."